1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a method of culturing Antrodia cinnamomea, and more particularly to a method of culturing Antrodia cinnamomea with high Triterpenoids.
2. Description of Related Art
Antrodia cinnamomea is a fungal parasite grown in inner cavities of the endemic species Cinnamomum kanehirae. Antrodia cinnamomea is widely used in Chinese society to be a medicine for food/medicine poisoning, diarrhea, abdominal pain, hypertension, and cancer. Antrodia cinnamomea is high-economically valued, and can be made into various medicines and healthy foods. Antrodia cinnamomea contains high Triterpenoids in its fruiting bodies, and Triterpenoids is effective in deactivating tumor cells and killing cancer cells without affecting the normal cells.
There are some traditional methods of culturing fruiting bodies of Antrodia cinnamomea. For example, TWI422680 and CN102746054 disclose a conventional culture medium for culturing microorganisms, in which specified Chinese medicine extracts are received. The culture medium is put in a sterile room with a controlled environment for 135 days to obtain a solidified culture medium for culturing Antrodia cinnamomea. CN202455895 discloses a sterile box to culture Antrodia cinnamomea, the environment in the sterile box is controlled as well, and Antrodia cinnamomea is exposed under 300 nm-800 nm light to increase the culturing efficiency of Antrodia cinnamomea in lindens, and to increase the active components thereof. In the prior arts as mentioned above, they need the expensive equipment to control the environment of the sterile room and a lot of expensive Chinese medicine extracts (about 16.7%-40%), and furthermore, they have to take at least 5 months (it would take 24 months when culturing in lindens) to culture Antrodia cinnamomea. The cost is expensive, and need plenty of energy.
Typically, there are four major categories of culturing Antrodia cinnamomea in the present market, and they are: 1) culturing Antrodia cinnamomea in Cinnamomum kanehirae or lindens; 2) culturing Antrodia cinnamomea by solidified culture medium; 3) culturing mycelium of Antrodia cinnamomea by liquid fermentation; and 4) culturing Antrodia cinnamomea in plastic bags. The first category is limited by rarer and rarer Cinnamomum kanehirae and lindens could be obtained. The fruiting bodies of Antrodia cinnamomea have Triterpenoids no matter it was cultured by the first or the second categories. No Triterpenoids in Antrodia cinnamomea when it was cultured by the third category, but culturing time is short which is beneficial to mass production. However, there is a large variation in the mycelium and fruiting bodies. Using the fourth category, it could have a similar aspect as wild Antrodia cinnamomea, but also have problems of high wood fibers and low Triterpenoids.
In conclusion, the fruiting bodies of Antrodia cinnamomea cultured by the first and the second categories contain Triterpenoids, which means they are better than Antrodia cinnamomea cultured by the third and fourth categories. However, the second category has the problems of high cost and needing long time (about two years) for culturing. It is bad for mass production and promotion.